Man Wins Battle With Park Over $3.80 Telephone Bill

September 15, 1986|By United Press International

PEMBROKE PARK — The owners of a mobile home park have been ordered to reimburse a 77- year-old tenant for the $2,700 he spent defending himself in the first of two trials stemming from a $3.80 phone call.

The owners of the Lone Pine Mobile Home Park already have gone to small claims court and an appeals court trying to collect $3.80 from Bernard Gottlieb. They are considering another appeal.

Gottlieb and his wife, Helen, who is suffering from a terminal illness in a nursing home, live in Orangeburg, N.Y. From November through May they stay at their mobile home in Pembroke Park, near Fort Lauderdale.

He said he mailed his June 1985 check as usual on June 1, but the park management said it was never received. On June 15 co-manager Nate Eisenberg called Gottlieb collect in New York.

Gottlieb asked the operator if it was an emergency. Eisenberg told the operator it was, and Gottlieb accepted the call. Eisenberg told him the check hadn't been received and Gottlieb sent another.

The next month Gottlieb deducted the cost of the phone call -- $3.80 -- from his rent payment.

''Not having received your rent is not an emergency,'' Gottlieb wrote in a letter to a trustee for the park's owners. ''I have never missed a payment nor have I ever been late with the payment. I use the self-addressed envelope you provide, and if they are not received promptly, your problem is with the Postal Department.''

The park refused to accept the reduced check and declared Gottlieb's rent delinquent. The owners filed an eviction suit against him.

''The three bucks isn't the problem,'' said James Pollack, attorney for the park's owners. ''If you let one do it, you'll get 300 doing it.''

Broward County Court Judge Harvey Ford ruled there was no emergency requiring a long-distance phone call, there was no basis for the suit and Gottlieb acted reasonably in deducting the cost of the call. He ordered the park owners to pay Gottlieb's $2,700 attorney's fees plus $179.41 in court costs.

The owners appealed and Circuit Judge Estella Moriarty upheld Ford's orders Sept. 5. Ford scheduled a hearing for Oct. 8, and is expected to order the owners to pay for Gottlieb's costs in the appeal.

The park owners have not decided whether to pursue another appeal, Pollack said.